Fact Check: Soldier encounter with child at airport unconfirmed

Sunday

I received a wonderful e-mail about a soldier who is asked by a little girl to deliver a kiss to her daddy who is serving in Iraq. Is it for real?

It's a heartwarming story, but no one can really say for sure if it's true.

Here's a synopsis of the e-mail:

The anonymous author is in the Atlanta airport and hears people beginning to clap. Thereafter he witnesses "one of the greatest acts of patriotism I have ever seen."

A group of about 40 soldiers in their camos are being cheered as they walk through the terminal. A girl of about 6 or 7 runs up to one of the male soldiers and asks if he could give something to her daddy.

The young soldier says he would try. Then suddenly the little girl grabs the neck of the soldier, gives him a huge hug and kisses him on the cheek.

The mother of the little girl, who says her daughter's name is Courtney, tells the soldier that her husband is a Marine and has been in Iraq for 11 months.

All the soldiers huddle for a brief second, then one of them pulls out a walkie-talkie. They start talking back and forth on it.

The young soldier walks back over to Courtney, bends down and says, "I spoke to your daddy and he told me to give this to you." He then hugs the little girl and gives her a kiss on the cheek. He finishes by saying, "Your daddy told me to tell you that he loves you more than anything and he is coming home very soon."

Snopes.com, a well-respected nonpartisan website that confirms or debunks rumors and urban legends, researched the e-mail that it said first began appearing on the Internet in late June 2006. Soon there were other versions, one with the airport in Canada, others with the airport in Australia and in England. In the various accounts, Courtney's father served for various lengths of time - sometimes in Iraq, sometimes in Afghanistan.

Snopes.com could not verify whether the e-mail is true. The website reports that the account has appeared twice in Canadian newspapers, once identified as an anonymous e-mail circulating online and once presented as something an opinion writer had himself witnessed.

When the story is recounted on various websites and blogs, numerous people comment that they have seen troops applauded at airports, although not one person confirms the little girl part of it.

In fact, it was Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport that inspired the Anheuser-Busch "Applause" ad that aired during the 2005 Super Bowl in Jacksonville and the 2005 Daytona 500. Before Anheuser-Busch rereleased the commercial for Memorial Day 2008, those were the only two times that the ad aired.

The "Applause" ad is based on the experience of a creative director at one of Anheuser-Busch's ad agencies, DDB-Chicago, who witnessed a similar event organized by the USO at the Atlanta airport in late 2004, according to a news release from Anheuser-Busch.

Military personnel from a variety of branches of service agreed to appear in the commercial, and are applauded by travelers as they make their way through the airport terminal. The ad ends with the words "thank you." It was filmed in mid-January 2005 at Los Angeles International Airport, according to the news release.

carole.fader@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4635

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